


Seventeen

by thenoahfosterr



Category: American Vandal (TV)
Genre: I love my boys, M/M, MY BABIES
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-05
Updated: 2018-10-05
Packaged: 2019-07-25 18:17:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16202984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thenoahfosterr/pseuds/thenoahfosterr
Summary: Because obviously, Peter has to conduct some kind of investigation.





	Seventeen

Peter doesn’t have a crush on Sam. He doesn’t. Yeah, they spend pretty much all of their time together and objectively, Sam’s attractive but that doesn’t mean he likes him. 

He and Sam have been friends since third grade. He’s seen all of Sam’s various stages - even his goth stage, and that was something. He knows virtually everything about Sam, and Sam knows everything about him. It’s unlikely that after all those years together, he’d only start feeling something now.

Peter is nothing if not disciplined when it comes to anything he can’t figure out. The problem is that he always asks for Sam’s help, because Sam always offers some kind of insight that he didn’t see before. That, and, yeah, he enjoys seeing Sam. It’s not weird, not to him anyway.

He knows that a bunch of people think they’re dating. After the documentary went viral he’d seen a whole bunch of comments regarding his relationship with Sam. At first, he thought that the people were just being crazy. But later on, when he’d asked Gabi and Dylan, they’d both confirmed that they thought the two were already together.

Well, Dylan’s wording hadn’t been quite so eloquent but Peter hadn’t minded so much. He actually really likes Dylan, even if some of his ideas are questionable, like the idea that he and Sam are together. 

However, the fact that Gabi feels the same as Dylan makes Peter wonder. Maybe he and Sam do act like a couple sometimes, but don’t all best friends? He knows that he’d felt jealous of Gabi and Sam before because they were so close. He tries to convince himself that he was jealous of Sam getting to spend time with Gabi but really, he knows it’s the other way around.

As far as solutions go, he can’t really see any. Telling Sam is not a viable option, because it would definitely interfere with their ability to make documentaries. Also.. he’s scared. Peter isn’t often scared, mainly because he doesn’t care what other people think of him. But Sam isn’t ‘other people’ - Sam is the one person he can’t live without.

He figures he’ll keep it to himself, but he’ll keep a journal of times that might indicate Sam feeling the same way. He knows it’s a long shot, because Sam isn’t very subtle, but perhaps he’s good at hiding crushes, just like Peter is?

—

His journal starts the very next day, at lunch. He and Sam are back at Hanover after their endeavours with St Bernadine’s, but something’s.. different. For one, they don’t eat together in the AV room anymore. They actually sit at a table with a couple of kids that seem to like them. This is pretty new for Peter.

Sam’s always been slightly popular, and people generally like him, but Peter’s never really had many friends. He just never really clicked with anyone but Sam, and he couldn’t be bothered to make new friends when he was leaving school soon, anyway. It was purely coincidental that the guy being framed for doing the dicks happened to not be an asshole, but other than that, all his friends have only been nice to him by extension of Sam. Excluding Gabi, obviously.

He keeps track of Sam’s actions at lunch. It’s pretty much the same as it’s always been - they both bring a different meal and just share it between the two of them. The only thing he notices is that Sam touches him - a lot. 

It starts when they sit down, with Sam’s hand on the small of his back until they reach the table, where it moves to rest on top of his notebook. Then, Sam nudges Peter to move up a little, and he doesn’t move away from his position right up close to Peter, even though there’s tons of space on the left side of Sam.

Next, he feels Sam’s foot nudging up against his. He figures it’s probably unintentional, so he ignores it the first time. And the second. And the third. He begrudgingly asks Sam if he’s okay, because Peter would be totally fine with Sam continuing but he knows that wouldn’t be beneficial to his study. 

Sam nods, giving Peter one of his smiles, and shit, Peter feels himself melt. He can’t help returning the soft look, tilting his food towards Sam to offer him a fry. Sam takes two and then squeezes Peter’s hand. It’s such a small, familiar action that Peter barely notices it, but he figures that’s not exactly a friend-friendly thing to be doing, so he jots it into his journal. 

He furiously ignores the squeeze of his heart when he looks over at Sam.

— 

Then, Sam defends him. For as long as Peter can remember, Sam’s never lied to anyone. And yet the following day he lies for Peter during Spanish, taking the fall.

It wasn’t that Peter wasn’t sleeping. He just wasn’t sleeping much and so he assumes he must have looked tired, because during what was supposed to be silent work, Sam had leaned over and asked him what was wrong.

Peter had been answering when Shapiro had immediately reprimanded him, threatening a detention (Peter was sure she wasn’t allowed to do that), and then Sam had stepped in, explaining that he’d been asking Peter for a pencil.

Peter knows it wasn’t the biggest deal. Maybe Sam had just felt bad for almost getting him a detention, but it was something he couldn’t help writing down. Whilst Peter genuinely did like Dylan, he doubted the male would have done the same for him. But Sam had, and.. well, Peter had been thinking about it for the rest of the day. Now, as he lies in his half-made bed, he can’t help smiling. 

He allows the possibility that Gabi was half-right. Maybe it’s the fact that he’s been spending so much time with Sam recently, instead of that he genuinely is attracted to him. Peter nods to himself ; that makes perfect sense.

—

The next week, it happens again. Someone’s hosting a party for one reason or another - Peter had long since stopped trying to find a reason for every party, because it became apparent that most of the student body didn’t need a reason to get drunk.

Usually, he’d be perfectly happy to simply stay at home and watch movies with Sam, but this time around his best friend is insistent that they go. And that’s how he finds himself in the kitchen of someone’s house, drinking a somewhat disgusting beer and watching the way the light illuminates Sam’s eyes.

Somewhere between their arrival to the house and now, Peter had managed to get incredibly drunk. He usually doesn’t get drunk, ever, because he’d always been afraid he’d out himself. Now that everyone knows, he needs to worry about not blurting out his attraction to Sam to anyone at the party, and definitely not to Sam.

He’s worried that perhaps he might not be able to keep it to himself. Every time he looks over at Sam, Peter gets an overwhelming rush of affection that makes him feel sick and excited at the same time. He’s gone past the buzz of being a little tipsy, so at this point he has no brain-to-mouth filter and knows that at any given moment he might blurt his secret. 

He’s been trying to avoid Sam all evening but it’s proving to be a very difficult thing to do. Sam won’t leave him alone, and even though he’s deep in conversation with some girl, Peter notes that Sam looks over to him every couple of minutes, like he’s checking that Peter’s still there. 

Peter tries to sneak off upstairs, and he thinks he’s succeeded until he hears Sam calling for him to wait up. He swears inwardly but turns around anyway because it’s Sam, and being away from Sam hurts Peter after a while. He remembers back to when they’d argued about Peter’s case against Sam during the first documentary and Peter shudders at the thought of Sam being mad at him again.

“Heeeey, Sammy.” Peter slurs and he finds himself smiling in response to Sam’s smile, though he thinks perhaps Sam is smiling at him because Peter’s being an idiot. He’s usually being an idiot.

Sam leads him into one of the guest rooms and Peter instantly begins to panic when Sam shuts the door, which he’d been planning to make a run for as soon as he possibly could.

“What’s up with you? You’re not a drinker.” Sam observes. Peter nods solemnly and then throws himself back onto the bed as he tries to take his shoes off by shaking his feet in the hopes that his converse might magically remove themselves.

Sam tries again, coming to sit beside him as he repeats his question. Peter shakes his head but he can already feel himself opening his mouth and starting to talk.

“You’re what’s up with me, with your stupidly attractive face and your stupid smile and the way you’re stupidly kind to me.” Peter tells him, and then looks towards the window as he wonders if he’ll break his leg when he hits the floor.

“Wait-wait, what? You think I’m attractive?” Sam replies, moving closer still to Peter (who’s still debating the idea of jumping out the window.)

“No.” Peter covers his eyes with his hand, “I think you’re stupid.” And then he kisses Sam.

He kisses Sam and he feels every single part of him join together like this is where he was always meant to be.

Sam pulls away and looks at him and Peter knows that an awkward conversation will follow when he’s sober. He tries to regain himself and try to talk to Sam about what just happened but instead, he simply succumbs to sleep and feels himself pass out.

—

The first thing he thinks upon waking up is ‘fuck.’ Which, if he’s honest, is a pretty accurate description of how he’s feeling in that moment. He doesn’t remember anything from last night, but whatever happened was definitely bad if his headache is anything to go by.

He tries to stand up from the bed and instantly sits back down because he thinks he might be about to vomit. In the corner of the room he sees Sam, sleeping on an oversized armchair, curled up into a makeshift ball.

Peter feels his heart swell. He doesn’t remember what happened the previous night between him and his best friend. All he knows is that he got drunk with the intention of telling Sam how he feels about him.. and nothing after that.

Fuck. He’s really panicking now, because what exactly does Sam know? He hopes to God that drunk him at least had the good sense to admit his feelings away from a crowd, otherwise his rejection might be viral by now.

Sam stirs and rubs his eyes and Peter finds himself relaxing. If Sam’s with him, things must be okay. But then Sam’s looking at him like he doesn’t quite know what to think and Peter’s definitely worried.

Sam usually looks at him with one of two expressions - he’s either agreeing with Peter or looking at Peter like he’s a bit of an idiot. But this expression is something Peter’s never seen before. Sam looks somewhere between vulnerable and happy and Peter has no idea what to do about it.

“What happened last night?” is what he blurts out, and his heart plummets when he sees Sam’s face fall. Only for a short moment, and then his friend regains his composure and puts on a faulty smile and a false happy voice and begins offering him food and drink and painkillers but all Peter wants to know is what he can do to get that first expression back.

He tries wording this with Sam but all he ends up with is a half-grunt, before he’s being spoon fed soup. It’s disgusting and he just wants to talk about what occurred between them the night before, but he can’t bring himself to do it, because every time he looks at Sam’s sad eyes, his heart feels hollow.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much to rach for helping me ilysm


End file.
